3 ms·

It's an interesting question. Obviously the money has to come from somewhere. Mail trucks cost money, and no one is going to go out and deliver letters for fr

It's an interesting question. Obviously the money has to come from somewhere. Mail trucks cost money, and no one is going to go out and deliver letters for free. It's easy to say we should just make up the difference with tax reciepts like we are now. I think it's less a philosophical question -- is mail like roads or police? -- vs a matter of efficiency. It's obviously possible to NOT lose money delivering much more difficult things than paper. FedEx and UPS do it all the time. But they're private businesses who compete with each other (and Amazon and whoever else), so they have to figure it out or they won't be around. The USPS, meanwhile, doesn't have to compete with anyone (in fact, it's illegal for anyone else to deliver mail) and has no incentive or need to be efficient because they can draw on the US Treasury whenever they need to. It's not that they're bad people, it's just the nature of the incentives and system involved (and also it's run by congress). These same dynamic would be there in banking though, which is why this seems like such a bad idea.

Klathmon 9y ago
I don't think competition is the answer here, I think it's more similar to the healthcare debate. Do you make people hard to deliver to have to pay more, or do you "average" out the cost and make everyone pay roughly the same amount? With a combination of taxes, flat-rate fees, and delivery-distance based costs, I think it's more than possible to make a system where it's not "free" or extremely cheap to send somewhere hard-to-get, but it's also not prohibitively expensive. And IMO the postal service is riding that line in a way that i'm happy with. I appreciate that I can send a small box across the country for $5, and I can do that whether I live in NYC or in middle-of-nowhere pennsylvania. And I'm more than happy to pay a bit more in taxes to make up for the difference that the flat-rate doesn't cover if it means that lower-income individuals won't need to pay as much to send mail at all. I know that there are problems with not having competition, but I think mail delivery is along the same lines as other "naturally monopolistic" things like power, water, sewer, etc...
- Hallucinaut 9y ago
  Sounds a bit like socialism to me. Next, you'll want to be sharing the costs of healthcare so people who happen to have an accident aren't bankrupted and left in financial stress for life...
- peacetreefrog 9y ago
  But competition is a problem in healthcare too. Why do you think health care is so expensive? A big factor is no one has to pay for anything out of pocket, and no provider has any incentive to compete on price. In fact, no one knows what the price of anything even is.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    It's a hard problem to solve, but it's not impossible, and I'd argue most are better than the healthcare system we have currently in the US. Yes, "state sanctioned monopolies" can be a problem, and they have their downsides, but I believe for natural monopolies they are the best solution.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
"It's obviously possible to NOT lose money delivering much more difficult things than paper. FedEx and UPS do it all the time. But they're private businesses who compete with each other (and Amazon and whoever else), so they have to figure it out or they won't be around." They also do not have the requirements to serve the entire country, and they do not have the bonkers pension requirements placed on them like the USPS does. "The USPS, meanwhile, doesn't have to compete with anyone (in fact, it's illegal for anyone else to deliver mail) and has no incentive or need to be efficient because they can draw on the US Treasury whenever they need to. It's not that they're bad people, it's just the nature of the incentives and system involved (and also it's run by congress). These same dynamic would be there in banking though, which is why this seems like such a bad idea." Money is far from being the sole motivator.

Klathmon 9y ago

I don't think competition is the answer here, I think it's more similar to the healthcare debate. Do you make people hard to deliver to have to pay more, or do you "average" out the cost and make everyone pay roughly the same amount? With a combination of taxes, flat-rate fees, and delivery-distance based costs, I think it's more than possible to make a system where it's not "free" or extremely cheap to send somewhere hard-to-get, but it's also not prohibitively expensive. And IMO the postal service is riding that line in a way that i'm happy with. I appreciate that I can send a small box across the country for $5, and I can do that whether I live in NYC or in middle-of-nowhere pennsylvania. And I'm more than happy to pay a bit more in taxes to make up for the difference that the flat-rate doesn't cover if it means that lower-income individuals won't need to pay as much to send mail at all. I know that there are problems with not having competition, but I think mail delivery is along the same lines as other "naturally monopolistic" things like power, water, sewer, etc...

Hallucinaut 9y ago
Sounds a bit like socialism to me. Next, you'll want to be sharing the costs of healthcare so people who happen to have an accident aren't bankrupted and left in financial stress for life...
peacetreefrog 9y ago
But competition is a problem in healthcare too. Why do you think health care is so expensive? A big factor is no one has to pay for anything out of pocket, and no provider has any incentive to compete on price. In fact, no one knows what the price of anything even is.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  It's a hard problem to solve, but it's not impossible, and I'd argue most are better than the healthcare system we have currently in the US. Yes, "state sanctioned monopolies" can be a problem, and they have their downsides, but I believe for natural monopolies they are the best solution.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

"It's obviously possible to NOT lose money delivering much more difficult things than paper. FedEx and UPS do it all the time. But they're private businesses who compete with each other (and Amazon and whoever else), so they have to figure it out or they won't be around." They also do not have the requirements to serve the entire country, and they do not have the bonkers pension requirements placed on them like the USPS does. "The USPS, meanwhile, doesn't have to compete with anyone (in fact, it's illegal for anyone else to deliver mail) and has no incentive or need to be efficient because they can draw on the US Treasury whenever they need to. It's not that they're bad people, it's just the nature of the incentives and system involved (and also it's run by congress). These same dynamic would be there in banking though, which is why this seems like such a bad idea." Money is far from being the sole motivator.